Credibility is key for Steven Breit, the Lancaster criminal defense attorney who appears on "Amish Mafia."

The Discovery Channel series portrays itself as a reality drama and follows a group of characters who operate inside the Amish community, but outside the Amish law. It's a fictional program according to Amish experts, including Professor David Weaver-Zercher of Messiah College. "There is no Amish mafia," Weaver-Zercher said in a March lecture this year.

Breit appears on the show routinely to remind the audience of the cast's real life criminal activities - cases of DUI, drug possession and the like. He isn't paid for his appearances and never signed a contract with the show.

"I did that for personal reasons," Breit said. "One reason is the credibility aspect. If people think I'm being paid for this, certainly they might think I'm trying to embellish things."

That isn't the case, he maintains. "My credibility is key," he said. "Once you lose that credibility, no one will touch you."

"I get a lot of criticism for it," Breit said of being on the show, adding later. "[In] my career as a criminal defense attorney we used to say 'It doesn't matter whether you win or lose, it's whether they remember your name.'"

Most of the criticism is concerned with the popular perception that the show is fake. "Unless you walk in an Amish person's shoes, you really don't' know what it's like to be Amish," Breit said. "The talent on the show have walked in the shoes of the Amish and they really do know."

"You can be a learned person and a professor, let's say, and study them, read about them and maybe even interview them. But these characters, this talent, are standing in the shoes of the Amish and can portray the Amish community," he continued. "Some people don't like the way it's portrayed, but... these are not just farmers and quilt makers."

As for the cast being Amish, Breit says they are by his definition. "So some of them have not been baptized and if that's the true mark of an Amish person then no, they're not truly Amish," he said. "But they've been in the community, they grew up in the community, they know the community, so they are, in my opinion, Amish people."

"I chuckled at that," Breit said of the supposed conspiracy to imprison Beiler. "We who know what's going on behind-the-scenes and you can see how the show is trying to craft that and springboard off of these activities," he said. "These guys [the show's writers] are creative!"

Still, Breit doesn't refer to the cast members as actors or characters - but as talent.

"Really, they're not actors," he said. "If you see how they act, they don't act well. So it's talent."

Breit began with working with the Amish in 1998. "I was involved at one time when the Amish were involved in dealing drugs with the pagans," he recalled. "That was the first undercurrent we had that there was a real, true issue of crime amongst the Amish community."

As for how he's benefited from the show, Breit isn't 100 percent sure. "I can't tell you people are coming to me because I was on the show or worked for the show," he said. "After doing [criminal defense] for 25 years... I like to think my clients are coming based on my own hard work and merit."

"Amish Mafia" isn't the first time Breit's been on television. He got his start during the Jerry Sandusky trial, appearing as a legal analyst for Fox 43. "It was a trial by fire," he said of his first interview. "I had never been on TV for a speaking role such as this," he recalled. "It was my first exposure and remember, it's live TV so you have one shot to do it right. That was very unnerving for me."

He must have done well, because Breit estimates he has appeared about 87 times since then on the news station. In addition to "Amish Mafia" and Fox 43, he also regularly appears on The Rose 101.3 FM's entertainment celebrity segment on Tuesday mornings.

Media work is were Breit would like to see his career path take him. "What I'm getting through [my work at] Fox is the exposure, but I'm also getting more of an inner self satisfaction for what I do," he said. "So I'm taking the attorney role and molding it into a television newsperson and I enjoy it."

"Amish Mafia" will be airing a Christmas special in December 2013 on the Discovery Channel.